Israel Matzav

Israeli Foreign Ministry says no deal on Iran nukes by end of March

A 'secret' report produced by the intelligence arm of Israel's Foreign Ministry and conveniently shared with Israel's Hebrew 'Palestinian' daily claims that there will be no deal reached between Iran and the P 5+1 before the end of March. The main purpose of the report's release is apparently to contradict Prime Minister Netanyahu's claim that he must address Congress before Israel's elections to have any hope of stopping such a deal.

The report, a copy of which reached Haaretz, was written by Sarit Young, a veteran researcher on Iran in the Foreign Ministry’s Center for Political Research. It was distributed last week to a number of Israel’s embassies worldwide following Khamenei’s speech to Iranian Air Force commanders on February 8.

Khamenei told the officers that he opposed a two-phase agreement with the world powers, the first at the end of March including general principles only, and the second, a comprehensive agreement by July 1. Khamenei said past experience showed that the powers used the time between the two phases to raise new demands against the Iranian nuclear program.

According to the report, this is the first time Khamenei has come out against the outline of the agreement reached in talks in Vienna in late November between the foreign ministers of Iran and the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

“Khamenei’s position will make it difficult in our view for the parties to reach an agreement. The remarks conform to the hard and uncompromising line of Iran’s supreme leader,” the report states.

The report also states that Khamenei’s opposition to a framework agreement was, among other things, “a clear response” to pressures on Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to reach a comprehensive agreement as part of an extension of the talks.

According to the report, Khamenei’s speech contains other indications that Iran was hardening its line toward proposals by the six world powers. As opposed to past speeches, Khamenei did not use terms like “heroic flexibility.” That phrase is one Khamenei coined more than 40 years ago, when he was a young cleric, to describe the elements that led the second Shi’ite imam, Hasan ibn Ali, to sign a peace treaty with his enemies in 661 C.E.

Khamenei also made use of this term before the signing of the interim agreement with the powers in Geneva in November 2013. According to the Foreign Ministry report, the fact that Khamenei did not use the term last week, “is an indication of a lack of willingness to be flexible or to wait for a better offer” from the powers. 

So if there's not going to be a deal, how do you explain this - which is apparently not part of the report? 

According to a senior official in Jerusalem who is intimately involved in the issue of negotiations between Iran and the world powers: “At the moment the Iranian side is saying no to everything.” The senior official, who asked to remain anonymous due to the political sensitivity of the issue, said: “Our concern is that precisely because of this, there will be some sort of compromise with the powers as part of the desire to reach an agreement.”

If you read the whole thing, you will find out that just about everyone outside of Israel disagrees with the foreign ministry's  assessment. And for those of you wondering why Netanyahu's own foreign ministry would issue a report (and conveniently leak it to his political enemies) that contradicts Netanyahu's own assessment, the foreign ministry is still inundated with Leftists.

Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Iran sanctions regime, Iranian nuclear threat, Israel's Foreign Ministry, Israel's Hebrew Palestinian daily, joint session of Congress, P 5+1

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:33 PM